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For months, intimidating communications recurred. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, later from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was ordered to the local precinct and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a high-value project where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces bulldozed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is exceptional in the globe," states the resident. "Yet their intention is to dismantle our social fabric and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of the slum sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the neighborhood. Homes are constructed informally and frequently lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the air is permeated by the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

To some, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and homes with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future achieved.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or drainage and there are no spaces for kids to enjoy," explains A Selvin Nadar, 56, who migrated from southern India in 1982. "The only way is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Resident Opposition

But others, such as the leather artisan, are resisting the redevelopment.

All recognize that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. But they are concerned that this plan – without community input – is one that will transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, evicting the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

These were these marginalized, migrant workers who established the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and business activity, whose economic value is valued at between a significant amount and a substantial sum annually, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately one million inhabitants living in the packed 220-hectare neighborhood, a minority will be eligible for replacement housing in the project, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be relocated to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the city, potentially divide a historic community. A portion will not get homes at all.

Those allowed to stay in Dharavi will be provided flats in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the natural, collective approach of residing and operating that has supported the community for so long.

Commercial activities from garment work to clay work and material recovery are expected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a specific "commercial zone" distant from homes.

Existential Threat

For residents like this protester, a workshop owner and third generation inhabitant to live in this community, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His rickety, multi-level operation creates leather coats – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, decorated jackets – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

His family resides in the rooms below and laborers and garment workers – migrants from north India – live in the same building, permitting him to sustain operations. Outside this community, accommodation prices are often 10 times costlier for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

Within the government offices nearby, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative outlook. Well-groomed residents gather on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying international baguettes and breakfast items and having coffee on a patio adjacent to a coffee shop and treat station. This depicts a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not development for us," says Shaikh. "It's a huge land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

There is also skepticism of the development company. Headed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the national leader – the business group has faced accusations of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

While local authorities calls it a joint project, the developer contributed nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A case alleging that the project was questionably assigned to the corporation is under review in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been subjected to an extended period of harassment and intimidation – involving phone calls, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege are associated with the developer.

Included in these alleged to have issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c